Monthly Archives: April 2016

OUR TOWN GREEN AND PLEASANT LAND

Town green

Despite the best efforts of the Tory government, supported by local councillors of all persuasions – who are never ones to shirk their responsibilities when it comes to helping out wealthy and influential PROPERTY DEVELOPERS – legitimate town and village green applications continue to get a hearing.

The Growth and Localism Act 2013, was supposed to spell an end to most town and village green applications. Legislation that was specifically drafted after the residents of Ashton Vale STUFFED Bristol’s richest man Steve Lansdown and his little coterie of Bristol City Council helpers trying to build a football stadium on their open space

However, it increasingly looks like the new law is not the developer free-for-all planned. In and around Bristol there’s due to be TVG hearings for COLSTON’S FIELDS, neighbouring Eastville Park, after the Merchant Venturer’s Colston School tried to build luxury houses on open space there and on CLAVERHAM GREEN in the North Somerset village where developers have designs on designated open space.

Our TVG expert tells us, “It feels like there’s a BIG SELL OFF of green land planned for after the mayoral election to build houses. Communities need to look at their green spaces NOW because local authorities might SELL them.

“It’s likely to happen in North Somerset and South Gloucester more than Bristol I reckon. Mostly AGRICULTURAL LAND on fringes of housed areas or sports pitches.  As soon as it’s zoned for development in local plans, it’s too late to apply for a TVG. Same if there’s already been a planning application in last two years.”

If you have open space nearby and you value it, apply for a Town Green NOW before the bastards rezone the land for their developer friends.

The Bristolian can put you in touch with people who can help.

DROOPER PLAYS THE FERRET SHIT GAMBIT

FERRET SHIT GAMBIT web

While homelessness in the city has increased by 40 PER CENT in a year and the housing crisis grips tighter, the council’s useless Tory boy housing boss, NICK “DROOPER” HOOPER seems to have found himself far more important things to do than deal with these … Such as setting up a, er, SPY NETWORK to catch council tenants he dislikes!

Over at Antona Court in Shire, residence of local firebrand and friend of the Bristolian Steve “The Avon Mouth” Norman, Drooper seems to have set up an INTELLIGENCE NETWORK with the sole aim of skewering Steve for er, something or other.

Last year Drooper THREATENED Steve, registered disabled, with EVICTION for parking his car too near a door at Antona Court soon after he had had threatened Steve with an ASBO for delivering a letter to his councillor in Avonmouth Library.

The eviction threat was hastily dropped, however, when Steve instructed Drooper to cease his “FUTILE BULLYING EXERCISE” and take him to court and evict him if he had a case. A course of action Drooper appears to not want to pursue. Wonder why?

Since then, Drooper’s brilliant spy network has uncovered lots of wrongdoing at Antona Court such as an ENTIRELY FICTITIOUS car repair business working from the car park; an ENTIRELY FICTITIOUS drug dealer in the block and an ENTIRELY FICTITIOUS sub letting resident!

However, not one to get deterred by having poor quality fabricated evidence exposed, Drooper simply widened his net across Antona Court to unearth all kinds of entirely NON-CRIMINAL ACTIVITY among the tenants such as a resident who hoards stuff; dog shit on the grass outside the flats and even a woman who keeps ferrets!

Unfortunately we’re unable to confirm, at this stage, whether those ferrets are shitting on the lawn too. Or whether Drooper has launched an expensive HIGH LEVEL INVESTIGATION with a view to issuing the world’s first ferret shit-related eviction threat in the history of social housing? If that doesn’t earn Drooper his £15k a year “uplift band” then what will? (solving the city’s homeless problem? ed.)

But how is Drooper obtaining all this top quality intelligence? Well, a brief saunter around the perimeter of Antona Court reveals that ONE RESIDENT – and one resident only – has taken delivery of a brand new garden box courtesy of Drooper’s housing department. Why would that be?

Is Drooper running a garden furniture for DAFT INFORMATION ring out of Antona Court? And will the council give us all a couple of deckchairs and some pot plants if we phone in our ferret shit-related concerns direct to Drooper? (Call 0117 922 4681 quoting ‘ferret shit emergency’).

We also understand that this lucky Antona Court resident has now been instructed by Drooper’s SHADOWY AGENTS (or Estate Management, Housing Services,North, Temple Street, ed.) to keep a diary of events at Antona Court, which we’re really looking forward to reading. Our own spies tell us that it might feature sensational revelations about residents’ friends visiting during daylight hours and people using the communal laundry after 8.00pm.

Clearly this entirely normal behaviour by council tenants must be stamped out and order restored at Antona Court.

MORE COUNCIL CUTS COMING?

MORE CUTS COMING? web

Sneaked in to the last Cabinet Meeting before the mayoral election was a paper harmlessly entitled ‘Change Board 6 Monthly Monitoring Report’, which just happened to drop in the fact that the council needs to make another £12.9m of CUTS by next April.

The paper meanders over twelve pages, explaining that £33m ‘savings’ have been made and another £18m are in the pipeline before dropping in that “the majority of THE REMAINING £12.9M SAVINGS ARE YET TO BE FORMALLY IDENTIFIED”! It then drifts on to explain that further cuts of £75.3m will be required 2017 – 2020.

But how exactly are these ‘savings’ of £12.9m over the next year going to be made? The main report itself forgets to say. However, on the very last page of the report under the final heading ‘HUMAN RESOURCES IMPLICATIONS’, it says:

“The progress set out in this paper is in line with the Section 188 notice issued in November 2013 … At that time it was estimated that there would be a potential reduction of 971 employees during the three financial years covered bythe MTFS … The organisation restructure that took place during the 2014/15 financial year resulted in workforce reductions of 523 FTE.

“Where further workforce reductions are required we will seek to reach agreement with the recognised Trade Unions on how to mitigate the need to make any further compulsory redundancies.”

No doubt, ENTIRELY COINCIDENTALLY, if you multiply the remaining redundancies available under this three year old notice (448) by an average wage cost at the council (£30,000) you come up with a figure not unadjacent to £12.9m!

With the mayoral election now really taking off, it will be interesting to see how many of the candidates will be committing to these LUDICROUS REDUNDANCIES and how many won’t. It’ll also be interesting to find out how any candidate rejecting these redundancies intends to make these cuts.

Staff at the council, meanwhile, are FLABBERGASTED that their bosses are proposing more redundancies. “The whole place is already overworked, understaffed and in meltdown, “ a worker told The BRISTOLIAN.

“If you want evidence just try phoning us up or accessing any service. It’s an ABSOLUTE FARCE, the public are simply ignored these days as a distraction.

“There’s no staff left to do anything already. Workloads are huge and unmanageable. More staffing cuts are impossible to make. Any incoming mayor who tries more cuts risks CRITICAL DAMAGE to already overstretched services.”

Over to you then mayoral candidates …